Kurt Cobain Docudrama Announces Release Date

Fresh off the heels of the publicity for this month’s HBO premiere of Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck comes a new Kurt Cobain documentary focusing on the conspiracies surrounding his untimely demise. More than a year after its first trailer was premiered, Soaked In Bleach announced a June 11 U.S. release date for select theaters and Vimeo On Demand.

Brett Morgen’s Courtney Love approved/Frances Bean Cobain produced Montage of Heck focuses on Cobain’s life with access to the family’s archives. Director Benjamin Statler’s Soaked In Bleach, however, is the story of his death through the eyes of Tom Grant, the private investigator Love hired prior to Cobain’s death to track him down.

The film, which appears to take its title from a line in “Come As You Are” (“Come doused in mud, soaked in bleach”) tackles the docudrama genre through its choice of media. It uses archive footage of Cobain mixed with interviews with those involved in the case and reenactments of things such as the conversations between Love and Grant and Cobain’s death scene. Many conspiracies point to foul play being involved in his death, and as evidenced by the trailer, it appears Soaked In Bleach will delve into that further.

Soaked In Bleach, like any film, is several years in the making. The filmmakers kept eager fans updated throughout the post-production process via their official Facebook page. Shooting wrapped in January 2014, and the first look at the docudrama aired via Yahoo! Movies on April 7, 2014, just two days after the twentieth anniversary of Cobain’s death.

The trailer pointed to a release within 2014, but a status via the movie’s Facebook page revealed that they were still in post-production as of June 2014 and had plans to begin discussions with distributors who would then choose when it would be released. The film’s score and final post-production began to reach completion in December 2014 where it was revealed “production [had] taken [them] a little longer than predicted.”

The Soaked In Bleach crew began introducing the project to European film buyers in early February 2015 and revealed Germany and Japan would see theatrical releases. Norway, Sweden and Finland joined the list in early March followed by Australia and New Zealand in mid-March. On May 8, the crew divulged U.S. contracts were in the works with hopes of premiering the new trailer this week, which is exactly what happened.

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